A National Disgrace: The Criminalization of Mentally Disordered Persons

  

March 22, 2003 -- The sad reality confronting Americans today is that our prisons and jails have replaced our nation’s mental health treatment facilities, and it will take a persistent effort by all concerned citizens to stop the inappropriate treatment of our mentally ill offenders.  In his report, Social Costs: Criminal Justice and Mental Health System: gaps which contribute to the criminalization of mentally disordered persons, Harold E. Shabo, Supervising Judge, Mental Health Departments, Superior Court of California, Los Angeles County, Santa Barbara, California, points to the following trends as the leading contributors to the phenomena of criminalization.

 

Lack of consistent, compassionate, tailored community services – most mentally disordered offenders are in local or state custody for nonviolent offenses as the result of lacking mental health care resources or access to such resources, which are often inconsistent or non-existent.  

 

Mandatory Sentencing:  The removals of judicial discretion – many mentally disordered offenders receive harsh mandatory sentencing which punish the recidivism without regard to the causes of the person’s criminal behavior. 

 

Lack of treatment in jails and prisons – Mentally disordered offenders are frequently victimized by custodial staff and other inmates.  Untrained prison guards frequently target these inmates for punitive treatment.  Exacerbation of mental disorders, serious physical injury and even death result in these inappropriate custodial environments. 

 

Inflexible legal standards related to legal insanity and incompetence to stand trial.  The need for statutory change to authorize a finding of guilty but mentally disordered. – There is an urgent need to modify existing law to authorize a finding of guilty but mentally disordered, which would trigger the sentencing alternative of treatment rather than punishment.

 

No diversion under court monitoring of nonviolent, mentally disordered offenders who are willing to accept treatment. – It is abundantly clear that without offering treatment alternatives most such offenders simply recycle through the criminal justice system.  This result is expensive and fails to serve either the mentally disordered offender or public safety.

 

To fully embrace the enormity of criminalization, consideration must be given regarding how a mentally disordered person most frequently comes in contact with the criminal justice system.  Overwhelmingly, the mentally disordered person enters the court system as the result of being arrested for driving under the influence or DUI.  An estimated 1.5 million people are arrested each year for DUI in the United States.  According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, conservatively, thirty percent of those arrested for DUI are alcohol dependant; meaning approximately 450,000 sufferers of alcoholism enter our criminal justice system each year.  Many of these people are dual-diagnosed, meaning they sufferer from alcoholism and another mental illness such as depression, bi-polar disorder, or schizophrenia.  Under our current DUI laws, punishment precedes treatment, and treatment is unfortunately handed down by judges as yet another form of punishment, rather than as an opportunity for intervention by the state.  If our response to the victim of alcoholism is primarily punitive in nature, is it fair to expect the alcoholic to completely accept that their behavior may in fact be the result of a morbid or co-morbid disease process, rather than as the result of a damaged moral compass?  Yet a sufferer of chronic alcoholism or dual-diagnosis does not choose to drink, therefore the inherit consequences of untreated alcoholism will continue to develop in episodes of extreme intoxication with all of the accompanying consequences intact. 

 

Sadly, the treatment options available to sufferers of alcoholism leave much to be desired.  The twelve-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous have their place for sure, but if society intends to continue punishing the recidivism of the alcoholic offender, then it had better find alternative treatments options other than a vital spiritual experience, which is the bedrock of the 12-step process.  How can we make as a condition of an alcoholic’s probation, that if they experience a relapse and start drinking, that they will be sent to jail for failure to comply with the conditions of their probation, while we insist upon their participation in a 12-step recovery process that teaches them that no human power could relieve their alcoholism, but God could and would if He were sought?  How can we continue to essentially punish a person for not finding a Higher Power?  Millions will continue to die, not from alcoholism, but from apathy.